Christ Is All - We Give Thanks — J. Glyn Owen

Colossians 1:3–8 and the Gospel’s Fruit

Now will you kindly turn in the scriptures to Colossians chapter 1. And I would like to read verses 3 to 8 Words which are going to form the basis of our meditation this morning. Mr. MacLeod took us through the Initial words last Lord's Day morning and we come now to the beginning of the unburdening of the message of this Wonderful letter of Paul to the Colossian Christians I'm going to read verses 3 to 8 in the New International Version.

We always thank God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ When we pray for you. Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints. The faith and love That spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and That you have already heard about in the word of truth The gospel that has come to you All over the world.

Thanksgiving for the Colossian Church

This gospel is producing fruit and growing Just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful minister of Christ and on our behalf and Who also told us of your love?

In the spirit. Now as we've indicated Mr. MacLeod dealt with a greeting and the salutation which is in itself a very precious nugget. There in verses 1 and 2 and this morning we come to this note of praise and thanksgiving.

May the Lord enable us in our hearts to continue to praise him as we have sought to do in our hymns this morning. And as the Apostle here Expresses his gladness Because of what God had done in his power and by his grace in this ancient scene of Colossi.

Now the first thing I would like you to notice is the great news that Gladdened the hearts of these two prisoners. You will remember as we have indicated previously that Paul and Timothy were prisoners when they received the news that occasion the writing of this epistle true, they may have been in a kind of hired house or At any rate they must have had some measure of liberty to entertain friends there And were allowed to write.

But the fact is nevertheless they were in prison. Probably Paul's hands as well as his feet were in chains. It is therefore something that takes us by surprise that They should begin writing this letter with such joy With a note of gratitude to God we we we always thank God.

These are the very first words. We always thank God. Now the question is What is it that occasion such gratitude from such people in such circumstances. Is it that someone has brought news that there are the accusations leveled against them the accusations that have brought them into prison Have been dropped.

No, it's not that. Is it that their enemies have died. No, indeed, it isn't that in fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with themselves. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their state their condition in prison nor even their prospects before the law.

They've heard the good news That the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ was preached in Colossae Over a hundred miles away much more than that among a people that Paul had never seen in the flesh and That there the same gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ had resulted in many men and women Coming to know God in his son and by his spirit.

With the result that a little church was planted there and they are showing evidence of being a Genuinely Redeemed and regenerate people of God. Now, that's what made them rejoice my friend. Can I pose the question would that make you rejoice?

What are the things that make you glad? What are the things that make you sing? What are the things that make us truly grateful before God. It's a most it's a most revealing question if you're honest with yourself what I want to get From myself and perhaps from you this morning.

Is this the acknowledgement that either we are or we are not on the same? Spiritual wavelength as these two men who were less concerned with their own physical and material well-being than they were with this one thing the Spread of the gospel and if men and women are coming to Christ in Colossae distant Colossae.

Though they've never seen them in the flesh. If they're glad and not only are they glad they must there and then in prison not once not twice. But whenever they think of them, they must praise and bless God because his gospel got there and served these distant folk in Colossae.

Faith in Christ as the Foundation of Christian Life

Now then we're going to deal at some length this morning with a cause of their rejoicing because Paul doesn't leave it at that it isn't just that a Mission or a Campaign or Whatever you'd like to call it has been taking place in Colossae.

It isn't just that people have been urged to come to Christ or Christ or even that they've professed to come to Christ. What is really making Paul and Timothy glad is this? There is evidence that those who have responded to the gospel are genuine and he mentions three features of the genuine Christian faith of the genuine Christian experience.

Now I would like you to look at them because they come up over and over again in the Apostle Paul and indeed in other Writers in the New Testament. There's a triad here first of all Paul and Timothy rejoiced on account of the emergence of faith in the Colossians because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.

Now this is not everything but it is something it doesn't comprise everything that took place in Colossae. But it is the first thing. We rejoice this Paul because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.

You see faith is basic to everything else without faith says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews. We cannot please God. Now you take that seriously, and it's stunning. But it's true. Without faith there is nothing whatsoever that you and I can do please to please God.

Faith is our necessary ingredient in the attitude of the soul toward him and in the absence of faith. Anything we may say anything we may sing anything we may preach anything we may do it comes to naught.

Without this Necessary thread of faith running through other things. They are equal to nothing therefore Paul and Timothy rejoiced because they saw the basis of a Genuine discipleship because here there was genuine faith.

Now you may ask me rightly Why are you stressing that we don't see anything very much to indicate that the faith is genuine. Well now true it is hidden there, but I want you to believe me that it is there.

Paul uses rather an unusual preposition translated in English in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Generally in the New Testament when the New Testament writers speak of faith in Christ. They use one or other of two prepositions one of them ice with the accusative.

And it means something like this. It means motion towards Someone or something with a view to resting upon that object. Just as I were to move forward to this rostrum and mean to put my weight on it. Okay.

So faith in Christ is a coming into the presence of Christ with a view to resting upon it. The other preposition is actually just this it's faith upon Christ. It is just resting upon. Standing on the promises of Christ my Lord.

Resting on Christ and his work and his promises. Resting on him just as you're sitting on those pews and I'm standing here. You're resting on something. I Hope you're very comfortable. I hope you're putting your weight on what's under you this morning.

Now that's exactly what faith is Generally spoken of in the New Testament. But Paul uses a different preposition here and this can only be used of a genuine a deeply genuine thing. It is faith in Christ.

It means you see that they've not only moved up and come face to face with Christ and are resting upon him. But their faith has penetrated into him. They're in living. Vital communion with him faith has got into Christ.

They're in him now not outside of him coming near but in Christ. There are men and women who have been born again. They are like branches in the vine or if you like to change the metaphor, they're like fish in the sea.

They're living in Christ as in their element. They're in Christ. If you want to use another metaphor which for some reason or other one or two of the commentators have used. It's like an anchor being cast into the bed of the ocean and it's not just got down there on the surface.

It's got it's got. Right. Into the rocks amid the rocks and it's there. Has your faith taken you into Christ? Are you in Christ? What is your element today? Where do you live or you live in Toronto or you may be visitors here?

Some other place your address is elsewhere. Listen, my friend. Where are you living spiritually? Are you a man or a woman in Christ? Genuine faith real faith is the faith that has brought me in to Christ.

One commentator has a beautiful Word here, and I think I ought to read it to you. He's referring to the tendency. The point when he was writing the tendency among some theologians particularly. To stress the value of love in opposition to faith and this is his comment.

Let us not fall into the specious fallacy which would discredit faith in favor of love with the almost inevitable result of discrediting a distinct revealed and infinitely needed ground and warrant of faith in favor of a religion of subjectivity and mere emotion.

Faith in the realities of the soul is as needful to love as the fulcrum to the lever or The wick to the flame. Love indeed is greater than love from one glorious point of view. Because faith is for the sake of love.

Rather than love for the sake of faith, but whoever discredited the foundations of the temple in favor of the gate beautiful or Thought that the gate beautiful could ever get beyond its need of the foundation.

In the architects thought the foundation was for the gate not the gate for the foundation. What's he saying. He's saying this faith and love are essential. We shall come to love in a moment but faith is the foundation of all and Faith that not just brings me toward Christ and on to Christ.

But into brothers and sisters, are we quite sure before God this morning that our faith has brought us into Christ. That we live and move and have our being in the risen reigning Christ of God. This is life.

But now that was one element the cause of Paul's rejoicing along with Timothy was there that they have made a profession of faith and the Indications are that that faith is real because it's brought them into Christ and that means they're new creatures.

Love for All the Saints

But now let's move on. Paul and Timothy rejoiced also because faith was accompanied by love. And of the love which you have for all the saints when one's faith has cast anchor into Christ and Settled in him.

It becomes a veritable channel Along which the believer finds the emotions of his Lord Trickling into his heart. I hope we all know this. You know, Paul hasn't gone long into the epistle to the Romans when he says exactly the same thing only in different words.

He talks about being justified by faith having peace with God and then access into his presence in Romans 5 and then he says this the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. My friend have you drawn near enough to God in Christ to have the dues of the Herman of the heavenlies?

Drop and distill upon your soul that you're Saturated with the grace of the throne has love come into your heart has the flood come in. Do you know anything about it? You say how do I know anything about it?

Is it that it is it that it gives me a tremendous kick and a sense of emotional? release or excitement. Well, not basically. If it's coming to you, it'll get out through you that's how you know the love of God and your love Toward all the Saints.

How do I know that the love of God has come into me in this way when it comes into a man it flows out through him and It flows out through him in this sense first and foremost Towards the Saints of God.

Saints are those who are separated to be the Lord Jesus Christ's property. Now this is the point the stress is made here by Paul that the the Colossians Showed love towards all the Saints. The fact that you love some of the Saints doesn't really prove anything.

Not a thing. You see you may love somebody just because they're your type. May be purely natural love. Okay, they were with you in school. You wear the same old school tie. You speak the same language.

They're the same color skin and that still means an awful lot to some people far more than it should. And they're of the same social class. And they drive the same car, you know, oh. We have a special love for them my friend.

It doesn't mean a thing the love of which the Apostle Paul speaks here is love toward all the Saints. Which means this not because they belong to my class not because their skin is as pale as mine. But because they're related to Jesus Christ.

They may be black. They may be white. They may be rich. They may be poor. They may be cultured. They may be illiterate. They may be in Africa. They may be in Norway. They may be anywhere. But if they're related as the dedicated ones of Jesus Christ, I love them.

Now that's the love that comes from Christ through his people. Oh Blessed love this and you see this proves genuine regeneration. Well, you don't look at a man's face or a suit of clothes or anything else.

But you look at a man and see there a man or a woman who belongs to Christ because of that my love Flows out. The love of Christ has flown in and it flows out first of all to all the Saints now, of course sooner or later.

It's going to overflow those banks and it's not going to be confined even to the Saints because God loves people who are yet Not Saints and in a pagan city like Corinth God would say to the Apostle Paul.

Oh Paul you can't see it. But I have many people in this city yet and I want you to love them and I want you to serve them and I Want you to go after them. So that the love of God in our hearts flows out first to the Saints and then to all the objects of his mercy.

Hope Laid Up in Heaven

You wonder that Paul sang in prison and then this can I? Well, I've worried you people this morning and listening so well. And finding the clock is going quicker than usual. Paul and Timothy further rejoiced because faith and love were accompanied by hope.

For the hope laid up for you in heaven now hope is sometimes a subjective phenomenon. Dwelling within the soul of the believer we say that we have hope or you may express it like this. I'm hopeful in the Christian sense in the biblical sense here.

It seems to be different. It seems to be in the objective. Our hope is laid up in heaven. Not hope in the heart now, but hope in heaven what you mean. What does that mean? Well, probably it's the same kind of thing as Jesus had in mind when he said lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.

Where moth and rust of corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but rather lay up your for yourself treasures in heaven. Now if you want to comment on that I would give you the words of the Apostle Peter.

Who says that every Christian is born again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance Incorruptible undefiled Unfading in the heavens kept for you and you are here kept for it.

That's what Peter says in other words I believe that what Paul is referring to here ultimately is Jesus Christ as their hope. You have faith which is in Christ you have love which is toward all the saints of Christ and This proves that that you have hope laid up for you in heaven.

In other words Christ is your home. All that is in Christ is yours. You may hope for him and for all that is in him to become yours. Remember how Paul begins the Epistle to the Galatians in the Ephesians in chapter 1 and verse 3 where he says that the Christian is blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now just get that is really a mouthful, isn't it? Every conceivable spiritual grace that you can ever need. It's been given you If a new year. It's been given you in the heavenly places. It's there in heaven.

How is it in the heavenly places? It's in Christ you look down the aisle as far as you can see with your prophetic eye and You can envisage the needs of tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after that and the weeks ahead of the month of the years and as best you can think of your emerging needs.

I Know we can't go far but just imagine them. Listen, my friend. Every grace that you and I can conceivably need has been given to us and it is all in the Christ who is on the throne. Everything's there.

Our hope is laid up for us in heaven. Christ is our hope as our anchor is cast within the veil. That hope is not going to let us down for he is reigning forever and ever. Is unfailingly Loyal to save those who come to him.

Now is no wonder that Paul and Timothy were rejoicing. They felt so sure that these people in Colossa were genuine Christians. You can almost hear them cross-examining the messenger and say yes, they believed but did they really believe?

They have loved. Who do they love? Is it genuine love? Does it manifest the new nature in them? Is it the work of the Spirit in them or is it just natural affection or is it just some emotional swish?

Sensing the reality of it. The great apostle is. And whenever he thinks of them, he says with Timothy he can only do so giving thanks to God. We always thank God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you.

The Gospel as the Word of Truth

Now that brings me to the second thing the good news that transformed the Colossians. What was it? Oh. All over the world says Paul. This gospel is producing fruit and growing. Just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.

Now it is quite obvious that Paul penned these lines. When he penned these lines he had in mind the Colossian heresy. You remember how in introducing this epistle we refer to a Heresy that was incipient in the situation.

It wasn't fully developed yet. But it was emerging and Paul is unquestionably thinking of that though. He's not saying too much about it. He's such a cautious such a wise teacher. He is he is expounding the glories of the gospel.

But he's making references and if you're wise enough, and if you're thoughtful you will see the references, but they're failed. To the contrast between the heresy on the one hand and what it offers. And what the gospel of the grace of God does for men?

Now let's look at this. We have first of all then the identity of the life. Transforming message. What was it that made all this difference in Colossi? Well, Paul puts it like this. It was the word they had heard beforehand.

Now this is important. Which you have already heard about in the word of truth. You may wonder what is there significant about that. Well again Paul is using a word here. There is as part of it the ordinary the normal word for hearing.

But he puts a preposition before it which means Heard beforehand and that means you see that Paul is thinking of other things that they've heard since. And he's wanting to stress. The fact that the gospel that has produced this character and this change of life in the Colossians.

They'd heard before they heard these recent Innovations that were brought by the heretics. The gospel that they heard was a gospel that produced faith the gospel that produced love and the gospel that Provided for them a hope laid up in heaven.

But no man could take away from them because the hope is there in heaven already this latter. Notion or philosophy or teaching that has recently come into Colossi. However Was not a doctrine that was capable of producing anything like faith and love and hope of that order.

Pagan philosophy Oriental mysticism or Judaistic legalism can be mixed together in any proportion you like. But they simply cannot produce faith and hope and love of this order. But the word you heard beforehand says Paul before ever these heretics came on the scene the word you heard before.

That's the word that gave you this rich experience of God's grace. And you see what he's doing. He's already beginning to put his arm around young Epaphras the evangelist who taught them the gospel and was come to prison to visit Paul.

The word you heard Beforehand, who did you hear it from? Epaphras. Whom the heretics were despising as not having the kind of sophisticated knowledge that they apparently had. Aha says Paul. But the word you heard beforehand from Epaphras was a word that brought you to faith and brought you to love and gave you the hope that is laid up for you In heaven.

Now what's come in recently? Can never do that kind of thing. Moreover Paul identifies the life-transforming Message as the word of truth and the emphasis there is of course upon the word truth the word of truth.

That was a distinguishing feature in the message as declared by Epaphras and accepted by the Colossians. But what is truth? Well, we are in the middle middle of it, aren't we? What is truth? And question was asked long ago.

Will you dare will you will you allow me this morning not to try and apologize for what I'm going to say. But try and put it in a nutshell, which is a very difficult thing to do, but I'm going to quote someone I know not who.

Faith is not an idea. Faith is not even I'm sorry. Truth is not an idea. Truth is not even a fact. Truth is correspondence between the reality and what describes it. Truth is the correspondence between reality and the way it's represented.

Now what is Paul saying? Paul is saying there are Spiritual realities behind the gospel that you heard. What are they God's? That he gave his only begotten Son. And whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Son of God took our humanity to his deity in the Virgin's womb and was born as a man and Became obedient as a servant even to death even to the death of the cross. He died for our sins on the cross.

Christ’s Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Return

He rose again and as if that were not enough He ascended up on high and he led captivity captive and he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From whence one day he will return to be the judge of the quick and the dead.

Having arrived in the Father's presence. He with the Father sent forth the Holy Spirit to take his place among his disciples. These are the realities behind the message of the gospel behind the Declaration of those things and of the possibility of sins forgiven and peace with God there lie these great verities.

The gospel is not just a little story spun together. The gospel is not a myth. The gospel is not just sweet talk. The gospel is truth in this sense. The message of the gospel has behind it these Massive realities of God's intervention in Christ for the redemption of men and women now.

See Paul is again thinking of the heretics and the heresy. You remember one of their issues was this they they said God is very very high that was a truth. Every Heretic will have some truth to say God is high.

God is glorious. God is too far away for us to get near him. That was true. Heretics will tell you that sometimes God has come down to earth. He's come near to us. Heretics will even allow for that sometimes but they usually say God comes near to us to you through us.

These heretics conceded that God had come down but how could the eternal God come right down and take flesh where when flesh is Evil according to them not according to the Bible. How could it come into a human body when this human body is?

Necessarily sinful now in order to answer that question. You remember they spun a Whole chain of cobwebs as one commentator speaks of it and they said well There is God up there in the highest and then there is some being an eon of God an emanation from God.

He stands next to him and then there is another emanation of God next to him and another next to him and you have Thousands upon thousands of these emanations of deity and at long last you have Jesus Christ at the end of the chain.

He came down from to the very place where we are and he represents God but between him and God there are these myriads of chains of eons says Paul. That's just a figment of the weird imagination. There's no substance behind the words there's no truth.

There's no Correspondence to reality there are no realities behind the words there but notions and that's the difference between philosophy and theology properly so-called behind Biblical theology there are the realities the substantive things of God who God is and what God has done.

But behind heresy, there is nothing but the weird notions of a man or a woman or both together. Says Paul behind the gospel lies. And so you see even though this is not something that is very acceptable in our age any more than any other age Christians believe that when they accept the gospel they accept truth.

Let me quote RC Lucas in his recent book on on this fullness and freedom on this epistle writes. The bold claim to possess and preach the truth must always be a scandal to men and women in any age. Not least our own.

But we have to insist says he That the merits of the gospel cannot be compared with other forms of religious teaching. For while they are relative by that he means this. That is truth for you, but not for me.

See you meet people like that. They tell you that's truth for you, but it's not truth for me. Well, that's relative truth. It's not truth at all but Christianity on the other hand is absolute truth and Universal that means it is true for all God's soul of the world.

God sent forth his son that is true for all God's son died that has happened. It is true. He is risen. It is true. He's ascended on high. It is true. He sent forth the Holy Spirit. It is true. The Spirit has given us the word.

It is true. The Spirit and the Word has given us the church. It is true. It is true. We're not dealing with figments of the imagination. Behind everything that is truth and we are of all men most foolish if we pretend on the one hand to believe the gospel and Then suggest to people that we don't have the truth.

Our gospel is the truth. Because Jesus Christ is truth incarnate and the only source of infallible knowledge. The last thing I can say this morning is this. Paul also identifies the transforming message as the gospel which has come to you.

That is to the Colossians. The word which the Colossians had heard from Epaphras was not merely truth and therefore reliable. It was good news. It was gospel and therefore desirable. Later on Paul speaks of it as a message of grace.

Salvation Freely Offered to the Unworthy

Now these two thoughts belong to one another. The transforming message spoke of a freely offered salvation. Already complete in itself and available to the most unworthy without charge. That's good news.

And it still is. Here were tidings of a full salvation that was able to save to the uttermost. Whilst at the same time it was free for anyone to receive it it came gratis. This stands out in sharp contrast with a kind of Jewish legalism and salvation by works concept.

Now being preached in Colossi as Paul was in prison and this good news came to the Colossians. Notice that every word here is important. Oh brothers and sisters. Let us read the scriptures carefully. The gospel came to Colossians.

Colossi didn't come for the gospel. The gospel always comes to us before we come to it. The grace of God always seeks us before we seek for it. The gospel came to Colossi. How did the gospel come to Colossi.

It got into Epaphras his heart when Paul was in prison when Paul was preaching in Ephesus. And having got into Epaphras his heart Epaphras by the grace of God was sent back home and he took the gospel with him.

The grace of God came to you then you came to Christ. Then Paul proceeds to stress the validity of the claim that the message that he had That had reached the Colossians was divine in origin and unique in character.

Goes on and he adds to it. Let me just mention these as I close. First of all, he says the gospel the he speaks he refers to the universality of its application. This is truth. He says this is the gospel of God.

This is not a human philosophy and one reason to prove one thing to that proves that is this. This is a gospel that performs its appointed ministry everywhere. All over the world the gospel is bearing fruit.

The Gospel’s Universal Reach

You know, we've we've really lost the significance of this. May the Lord help us to recapture it. This message bore fruit in the lives of those who had received it in Colossi. The kind of fruit we noted in verses 3 to 5 centering in faith love and hope.

Yes. Yes. But whereas the nature of the fruit it bore and still bears is unique. What Paul now stresses is that it does the same thing anywhere and everywhere. This is not a plant that can only thrive in certain climatic conditions.

This grace which brings forth fruit brings forth fruit everywhere. Whether in the equator or in the poles. Its potency is as wide as humanity. It is neither confined to an age group nor an era in history nor to a class in society.

It is boundless. It is universal in its potentiality. You remember our Lord's claim and I said if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me. Now that did not mean as it may appear to mean that he would draw people without exception.

Because if you just read the context go back to chapter 5 of John. You will find that Jesus has already said to some people you will not come to me that you may have life. So it doesn't mean everybody without exception and He will tell some of the children of Abram according to the flesh that there will be those who will come from the east and from The West and they will sit down with Abram in the kingdom of God.

But the children of the kingdom will be will be cast out. They'll be outside. So this is not universalism that everybody will be saved it doesn't say that. Well, if it is not everybody without exception, what then is it?

Well, it is everybody without distinction. I will draw all men unto me. Now you say what warrant have you got for saying that? Well, I'll give you my warrant and here it is. It's explained most beautifully in in in the book of Revelation as for example in chapter 5 and verse 9.

Here we are in the New Jerusalem here we are before the throne of God and they sang a new song saying Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of Every kindred and tongue and people and nation.

Every kindred and tongue and people and nation without exception. Jesus Christ did not set out Apparently to bring every man and every woman out of darkness into his kingdom. The church is an Ecclesia.

It is calling men out of the world to be his own. It is calling a bride to be his own. And when at last we shall come to that vantage point from whence John was speaking these words We shall find that there hasn't been a kingdom.

There hasn't been a nation. There hasn't been a people speaking any language. But that out from among them the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne has gathered his elect has saved and redeemed. And washed in his blood those who were guilty black and white rich and poor North and south east and west they will come without exception.

This gospel my friends is Effective everywhere to perform what God in Christ means it to perform. Everywhere so small it is bearing fruit everywhere and the vitality is extensive. It is producing fruit and growing and it is with this.

I must close a Gospel doesn't lose its potency upon its first impact it grows. It spreads. If you receive this gospel of truth, which is your salvation if you receive Jesus Christ. Then the seed that you receive at that moment will begin to spread through your own life.

It'll touch your head touch your heart touch your conscience touch your will. It'll affect your body your way of living. Privately publicly and business wherever you are wherever you go. You see it'll it'll it'll permeate.